BEIJING: North Korea has agreed not to engage in activities hazardous to aviation without advanced notice, a UN aviation agency official said on Thursday, an assurance that could lead to major airlines resuming flights through its airspace.
Airlines take indirect routings to avoid North Korea due to the threat posed from unannounced missile launches that are worrisome in the wake of the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over Ukraine.
If the airspace was deemed safe, carriers could save fuel and time on some routes between Asia and Europe and North America.
Officials from the Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) visited North Korea this week to discuss a request by Pyongyang to open a new air route that would pass through North Korean and South Korean airspace.
“We received a solid assurance from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea that they will not be engaging in activities hazardous for aviation without full advanced notice for the other states in the region, and that they would coordinate that activity to ensure that we could retain safety,” ICAO Air Navigation Bureau Director Stephen Creamer said upon his return to Beijing.
Asked whether this meant international airlines would resume flights over North Korea, ICAO Regional Director Arun Mishra said: “It’s always a possibility ... We’re continuing toward establishing a more healthy relationship.”
It is the latest sign of practical reconciliation measures taken since North Korean and South Korean leaders met last month for a first summit in years, and signed a pledge to pursue peace on the peninsula.
Countries such as Britain, France, Germany and the United States have advised airlines not to fly in North Korean airspace, called the Pyongyang flight information region (FIR).
Mark Zee of Flight Service Bureau, which provides safety information on airspace to airlines, said on Wednesday that North Korea had provided warnings of all missile launches until around 2014 but that gradually ended and by 2016 airlines avoided the airspace entirely.
He said a guarantee by North Korea that it would provide warning if it fired a missile would likely be enough for regulators to remove warnings about the airspace.
“It seems very likely that in the coming months, we will start to see international traffic start to use the Pyongyang FIR again, and may even see some new airways being established,” Zee said in a website post before the ICAO meeting concluded.
North Korea agrees to warn of activity hazardous to aviation: UN agency
North Korea agrees to warn of activity hazardous to aviation: UN agency
UN experts condemn US move to strip migrant children of legal aid
- Trump’s immigration crackdown, including an effort to deport hundreds of thousands of migrant children who entered the US without their parents
WASHINGTON: UN human rights experts on Tuesday denounced the Trump administration’s decision last year to cut legal aid for unaccompanied children in US immigration proceedings. The condemnation came days after UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk urged the Trump administration to ensure that its migration policies respect individual rights and international law.
“Denying children their rights to legal representation and forcing them to navigate complex immigration proceedings without legal counsel is a serious violation of the rights of children,” said the independent experts, who are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council.
The White House dismissed the experts and said it had made attempts to locate children it says were smuggled into the United States under the previous administration, without elaborating with specific examples.
“No one takes the UN seriously because of their extreme bias and selective outrage – they should be praising the Administration for protecting children, not lying about our policies,” Abigail Jackson, a spokeswoman for the White House, said.
In February, the US Department of the Interior ordered legal service providers working with the children to stop work and cut their funding. The providers sued over the move and a federal judge later temporarily restored the funding for the program. The cuts came amid President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, including an effort to deport hundreds of thousands of migrant children who entered the US without their parents.
The UN experts called the deportations unlawful and said they breached international human rights law prohibiting the removal of vulnerable groups, including children at risk of human trafficking. They also condemned the administration’s $2,500 offer to get the unaccompanied children to voluntarily leave the US
“Child-sensitive justice procedures should be guaranteed in all immigration and asylum proceedings affecting children,” said the experts, who have been in contact with the US government on the issue.
More than 600,000 migrant children have crossed the US-Mexico border without a parent or legal guardian since 2019, according to government data.
